史克威尔艾尼克斯（Square Enix）的《Vagrant Story》在非官方 PC 移植版中获得路径追踪，但 2 项新玩法追加才是真正升级

In the past few days, we have seen a flood of unofficial native PC ports launching online, ranging from PlayStation 4 exclusives like Bloodborne, Gran Turismo Sport, and God of War 3 Remastered to Nintendo Switch exclusive The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and the classic Game Boy Advance game Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. However, in terms of new features and options, all of these ports pale in comparison to the Vagrant Story unofficial PC port, which not only makes the classic PlayStation game by Square Enix playable on PC without emulation, but also adds a lot of new features, including ray tracing and path tracing support, and new gameplay mechanics.

"rood-boi is a native PC port of Vagrant Story for Linux (and Windows, built from Linux or WSL). It is built on the rood-reverse decompilation: the game's original logic is the decompiled C, compiled for x86-64 and run directly (there is no emulator and no MIPS interpreter), with a host layer that stands in for the PlayStation's GPU, GTE, SPU, CD drive, memory cards and pad," reads the official description of the project developed by Daemeous on GitHub.

In addition to making the classic game playable, the unofficial port builds on it with a modern renderer that allows for modernized graphics. "The world is drawn from native meshes on Vulkan (or OpenGL), lit with hardware ray-traced shadows, path-traced or probe-based global illumination denoised with NVIDIA NRD, and volumetric haze, while the PS1 look (nearest-filtered textures, original geometry and 2D) is kept. A live, Unreal-style editor lets you fly a free camera and place and tune lights while the game runs."

The new lighting features are obviously the most interesting aspect of this unofficial Vagrant Story PC port: ray-traced soft shadows, per-pixel path-traced indirect light (Ultra, denoised with NVIDIA NRD), DDGI probe GI (Medium/High), shadow maps where there is no ray tracing, ambient occlusion, and volumetric haze. Multiple presets allow the user to choose between the original's baked lighting and the remastered lighting.

As much as ray tracing and path tracing in Vagrant Story are impressive, it's some new gameplay additions that steal the show. Not only does the port feature optional weapon slots that let the player quickly swap between them on the fly (a godsend given how important damage types are in the game), but it also supports an optional companion mod that makes Callo Merlose accompany Ashley Riot throughout the game. The implementation makes this mod feel almost like part of the vanilla game, as Merlose fights independently from Ashley, healing and casting spells without input. The character also disappears during cutscenes so as to preserve the spirit of the one-man mission the Riskbreaker has been sent on.

To this day, Vagrant Story remains one of Square Enix's most unique games thanks to its combination of action and turn-based combat elements and the dark depiction of Ivalice, the same world as Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII, so this unofficial port is a great way to experience the game with features that wouldn't look amiss in an official remaster, one that hopefully gets released to allow console players to experience a title I have always found akin to Metal Gear Solid, only with a dark fantasy setting.

About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.

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